Raising an Arab Father in America : Part 1

The Language of Baklava
by Diana Abu-Jaber

Diana Abu-Jaber's vibrant, humorous memoir weaves together stories of being raised by a food-obsessed Jordanian father with tales of Lake Ontario shish kabob cookouts and goat stew feasts under Bedouin tents in the desert. These sensuously evoked repasts, complete with recipes, in turn illuminate the two cultures of Diana's childhood-American and Jordanian-while helping to paint a loving and complex portrait of her impractical, displaced immigrant father who, like many an immigrant before him, cooked to remember the place he came from and to pass that connection on to his children. The Language of Baklava irresistably invites us to sit down at the table with Diana's family, sharing unforgettable meals that turn out to be as much about "grace, difference, faith, love" as they are about food.

Chapter 1

It's a murky, primordial sort of memory: a cavelike place, bright flickering lights, watery, dim echoes, sudden splashes of sounds, and - hulking and prehistoric - TV cameras zooming in on wheeled platforms. A grown man in a vampire costume clutching a microphone to his chest is making his way through rows of sugar-frenzied, laugh-crazed kids. He attempts to make small talk with the children through a set of plastic fangs. "Hello there, Bobby Smith!" He chortles and tousles a head. "How are you, Debbie Anderson!" I'm sitting in a television studio in a row full of cousins and sisters, not entirely sure how I got here - this was my aunt Peggy's idea. She'd watched The Baron DeMone Show for years and finally decided to send away for studio tickets.

He stalks closer and closer: I can see tiny seeds of sweat sparkling along his widow's peak. He squints at our oversize name tags: "Farouq, Ibtissam, Jaipur, Matussem . . ." I see his mouth working as he walks up our row of beaming, black-eyed kids. Eventually he gets to me. "Diana!" he cries with evident relief, then crashes into my last name. But apparently once this man starts going, he must see the thing through. He squints, trying to sound it out: "Ub-abb-yuh-yoo-jojee-buh-ha-ree-rah . . ." This guy's a scream! I can't stop laughing. What an idiot! I've got green eyes and pale skin, so evidently he feels I must speak English, unlike the rest of the row. He squats beside me, holds the big mike in my face, and says, "Now, Diana, tell me, what kind of a last name is that?"

This guy slays me! I can barely stop laughing enough to blast, "English, you silly!" into his microphone.

He jumps, my magnified voice a yowl through the studio, then starts laughing, too, and now we're both laughing, but at two different jokes - which must happen quite a bit on children's programming. He nods approvingly; they love me and my exotic entourage - later we'll be flooded with candy, passes, and invitations to return to the show. But at the moment, as the Baron stands to leave, I realize I'm not quite done with him yet. I grab him by the back of his black rayon cape and announce on national television, "I'm hungry!"

I'm six and I'm in charge; the sisters are just getting around to being born. Bud, my father, carries me slung over one shoulder when he cooks; he calls me his sack of potatoes. Mom protests, pointing out safety issues, but Bud says it's good for me, that it'll help me acclimate to onion fumes. I love the way his shoulder jumps and his whole back shakes as he tosses a panful of chopped tomatoes over the flames while the teeth rattle in my head.

My father is a sweet, clueless immigrant - practically still a boy. He keeps getting fooled. He saw TV for the first time when his boat stopped in Italy en route to Ellis Island. It was flickering in a hotel lobby. On the screen he saw a lady in a pretty blue dress singing to a cat dressed in a tuxedo. "Look at that," he marveled to his brother. "They've got a whole theater inside that box!" After he'd been in America a couple of months, a door-to-door salesman convinced him to spend three weeks of pay on a TV that didn't have any working parts. He told Bud it needed some time to "warm up." Bud hopefully switched it on and off for weeks before an American friend visited and explained that this TV would never be warm.

Bud learns English not from books, but from soaking in the language of work, of the shops and restaurants after he arrives in this country. I don't know where he learns how to hail strangers, but whenever my father needs directions - which is frequently - he flags down men and women alike with the same greeting: "Hey, bud!" I grow up thinking of all Americans as Bud - and even though my father's name is Ghassan Saleh Abu-Jaber, he becomes the original Bud.

I learn early: We are Arab at home and American in the streets. The streets are where Bud speaks English in a loud voice, swaggers, wears hard-soled shoes. Sometimes he slips and haggles with the clerk at Sears over the price of ties. He'll ask me in Arabic if I think the man is a big moron or just a little idiot. After considering my assessment, he'll formulate the appropriate bid - perhaps grudgingly offer to pay the price on the tag - minus two dollars! Plus an extra tie! Usually the clerk looks befuddled or calls for a manager, but every now and then, Bud'll find one who turns sharp-eyed and pleased, who throws out an unauthorized counteroffer - extra tie, but full price! Their voices flash in the flat mall light.

On Saturdays Bud is in the kitchen. The old houses along our elm-lined streets seem to sigh, screen doors ease open, the air sweetens, and the sky leans back on one elbow. First my father will make breakfast. After that, any one of a number of miraculous things can happen:

• Go to Diplomat-Uncle Jack's house and have stuffed grape leaves.
• Go to Professor-Uncle Hal's house and have kibbeh.
• Go to Businessman-Uncle Danny's house and have stuffed squash.
• Go to Crazy-Uncle Frankie's house and have roasted leg of lamb.
• Go to Fair Haven Beach with everyone and have shish kabob.

Those aren't their real names: Uncle Hal is really Uncle Hilal, Jack is actually named Jaffer, Danny is Hamdan, and Frankie is short for Qadir. They are the uncles who, along with my father, came to America. Somehow, after they bought their new winter coats at Robert Hall in downtown Syracuse and changed the part in their hair, they all seemed to have new American names as well. Almost everyone I know has two names - one from Before and one from After. Even I have two names - for some reason, Bud calls me Ya Ba, which means "Little Daddy," but this name seems to belong between the two of us.

I love to be in the kitchen and watch my strong father at work in his undershirt, baggy shorts, and sandals. He's singing along with the radio and not getting a single word right. But what he lacks in accuracy he makes up for in gusto and verve. He slides a whole side of lamb out of the refrigerator, hoists it up for me and my friend Merilee to admire, and says, "Here he is! Here's Marvin." Bud likes to name all big cuts of meat - usually Tom, Dick, Harry, or Marvin. I stand close beside him, four feet high in flip-flops, bony shoulders poking through the crossed straps of my sundress, plastic heart-shaped sunglasses propped on my head, and watch as he centers the meat on his chopping block and whomps his cleaver down. My friend Merilee, with her freckles and straw yellow pigtails, shrieks and clatters out the back door. I happily tote the bloody kabobs from the block to the marinade of garlic, rosemary, vinegar, and olive oil. Bud tells me that someday I will make a fantastic butcher.

Copyright © 2006 by Diana Abu-Jaber.

About the Author

Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of Crescent, which was awarded the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction and the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award and was named one of the twenty best novels of 2003 by The Christian Science Monitor, and Arabian Jazz, which won the 1994 Oregon Book Award and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award. She teaches at Portland State University and divides her time between Portland and Miami.